What's new

Sample Developers Appreciation Thread

I think these are what the OP means. Tell us who they are.

I listed a few but given I have a bit from every developer listed so far, I was reluctant to name a bunch because where do you start and where does it end?

I’ve always been curious about infinite brass so it’s good to hear positive talk about that. If I’m to add another to the pot, I’m thankful for pluginguru and their Omnisphere patches...spectrasonic too for that matter
 
I only have one OT library (Time Macro), but I really love it. Incredible sound, textures that I don’t think you can get anywhere else (and which almost alaways manage to not overlap with the Spitfire texture libs), and just sense of a real artistic vision holding it all together.
 
This is a wonderful thread.

I've actually meant to start a 'thank you' thread for a long time so this is a good opportunity.

Going back in time to when I was a teenager I wanted to make progressive-post-classic-alternative-rock with lots of ambient electronic, reggae/dub, classical, international and folk influences blended in (which is what I'm still trying to do). I was frustrated by being limited to composing using nothing more than an electric guitar and a solid state amp and needing to leave it to other people with less diverse interests to write the bass, drums and vocal parts. I was also frustrated at not being able to write parts at all for synth, transistor and tonewheel organ, electric piano, piano, mandolin, banjo, cello, celeste, harp, marimba, djembe, shakuhachi or koto (to name just a few). I just didn't have that ability to imagine how the end result would sound. I needed to hear how all the parts sounded when played back together. Even the difference in tone between a solid state amp and a tube amp was off putting for me.

I can't say enough how much sample libraries and plugins have opened up my horizons and allowed me to do what I've always wanted to do, nor how grateful I am to each and every developer for what they have created. If I had to single out any particular developers whose work has been most important to me, it would be:
  • Orange Tree Samples - for giving me my guitar and electric bass core instruments (yes I play guitar, but I still use these libraries).
  • SonicCouture - for giving me my favourite E-Pianos and pitched percussion.
  • Also Impact Soundworks, Ilya Efimov, Embertone, Fluffy Audio, Red Room Audio, Sonokinetic, Evolution Series, Strezov and Sonica for giving me a lot of my international, folk and historical instruments.
  • Spitfire for giving me my main orchestral sections, washed in the beautiful ambience of AIR Lyndhurst, including a lot of those atmospheric textural orchestral sounds (especially from Tundra) that I absolutely adore.
  • Harmonic Subtones for giving me Emotional Violin and Emotional Cello. Can't say enough how much I love these two.
  • U-He for giving me my analogue synths
  • ... and Quiet Planet/Boom Library for those natural ambiences I like to mix in.
I'd also like to say thank you to Heavyocity, Native Instruments, E-Instruments, Indiginus, Hollow Sun, Hideaway Studios, Rhythmic Robot Audio, Synth Magic, CL Projects, Fracture Sounds, Best Service/Tarilonte, Sampletekk, Wavesfactory, Art Vista, Cinesamples, Cinematic Studio Series, Bolder Sounds, Realitone, In Session Audio, Soundiron, Vir2, Acoustic Samples, Sound Dust, Chocolate Audio... the list goes on.

A massive heartfelt thank you to you all. :)

(Edited to add reggae/dub, Strezov and five more developers)
 
Last edited:
Agree with pretty much everything that’s been listed so far. For realistic stuff Spitfire is in everything I do, as is the Cinematic Studio Series.

Two smaller devs that continue to impress me are Waverunner Audio, for the amazing quality of sampling and programming in the 2 French horn library, and the creativity of the rest of the line up. And then of course Sound Dust. Peddle is my personal sampling hero, as he turns sampling and building unique virtual instruments into a creative art form in itself - personally I find that way more interesting than realism, but that’s of course a personal preference.
 
+1,000,000 for all the developers mentioned so far.

I would like to add Organic Samples to the list, although I know they are on the OT team now. I never tire of playing their Solo Opera, and Majestic Horn is such a great gift.

I probably play Bohemian Violin more than anything else I own... so thank you Virharmonic.

This may be too obvious, but three cheers for Spectrasonics. Omnisphere is the best virtual instrument purchase I ever made.

UVI, FrozenPlain, Ilya Efimov, Dream Audio Tools, In Session Audio, Audiofier, far too many to name...

Thank you all.

Thank you so much @TigerTheFrog . I must say, I'm pretty excited about posting a few audio snippets from the coming Organic Samples libraries. We form a strong team together with Orchestral Tools and whilst we share the same goals, we still keep our own ways of doing things.

Organic Samples will not suddenly come up with a kind of "Alternative Berlin Brass" with lots of different ensembles and sections. I basically keep focusing on the concepts I had so far and try pushing these forward thanks to that collaboration.
 
Last edited:
Wonderful thread topic here! Some of my favourite top name developers are:

Orchestral Tools
Cinesamples
Cinematic Studio Series

I always use Orange Tree Samples for their guitars, Soundiron’s Emotional Piano for intimate piano, and ProjectSam for anything fun/swing. Thanks so much guys!
 
Finally some positive stuff amidst all the negativity in the forum...some key developers (in my workflow) that I would like to show appreciation for:

Thankful for Spitfire Audio for their commitment to making good-sounding orchestral samples more accessible to us, and for continuous innovations that make composing with samples a lot more enjoyable.

Thanks to Garritan for their inspiring products which help us in times of low creativity.

Thankful for Spectrasonics for their workhorse products that never fail to make their appearance in almost every project.

(still many more devs to thank but sadly, the caffeine shot has run out after a 12-hour death march...zzz)
 
I want to give some love to developers who allow license transfers. :dancer:

Soundiron
Embertone
Best Service/Harmonic Subtones
Orange Tree Samples
Chocolate Audio
Soniccouture
Chris Hein
Native Instruments

They are the first places I look when shopping, and a majority of my Black Friday dollars went to them last year.

(For reference, the resales list is here, with some updates here.)
 
Number one thread.

For me it has got to be VSL, reason is for there complete package very solid working no crash library's a great software offer with top plugins EQ, Limiter, and so on, Stage placing software, and VEpro that has made a lot of things happen in peoples studios and muckups with out it it can make life very hard or perhaps you may not be able to do the things you, do VSL have an extremely low power foot print, and of late has expanded their products the Synchron series giving them self's a very welcome face lift, all this is done by very hard work from the developer i would stick my neck out and say every composer has something on there system with the name VSL written on it.

My second is OT and i have none of there products yet, but when the new sampler comes out i can see myself hanging around on there website, what they are doing is going to benefit a lot of people who has not used there product as yet, a very smart move from OT making a lot of changes to benefit all Thumbs up to them cant wait.

EastWest, 8dio, Audio modeling, Harmonic Subtones and the Emotional Cello/Violin, NI, Streinberg and Cubase, Reaper, the izotopes, the Waves, have all enhanced our music life in some way, also its easy to tell great developers even if you have none of their products, Alex and CSS, Sample modeling,Spitfire,Chris Hein, and tons more.

God bless them all.
 
I bought way too much products in the past from different developers, and decided to go the VSL way.

These libraries are expensive, but fully worth it. You have to go beyond the Special Editions to experience the full potential, and it needs (mixing) work to be done. I really fell in love with their libraries again, the playability is unsurpassed. Every libary has flaws, but to be honest, I never experienced a problem with VSL in that regard. The quality control of their samples is awesome.

Unfortunately, there isn't much talk about their libraries, which really is a shame! And this was the reason I switched to other developers. In my opinion, they should do more for new customers. On their website there are hundreds of audio demos, but no information. You have to read the forum in order to get to know things. A potential new customer can't see what's special about their libraries, why they are different from others, why you should upgrade to the full library etc.

For example: The "performance trills" you only get in the full libraries. But what the heck are they and why should I buy them? I guess that many of you simply don't know what these are, too, right? I mean, these patches are the real USPs of their libraries, and there is no talk about it. I don't understand... Just my 2 cents.

------

@novaburst: I have to say that I'm also interested in OT's new sampler and webshop, because you are going to be able to buy single instruments.
 
It amazes me to no end that VSL is being mentioned as little as they are on composer forums. I'd really love to know why.

Their policy regarding elicenser. Other than that I think their software is so amazing. You can also get a nice orchestra one piece at a time.

My favorite are always the small developers making synth type libraries.
 
Thank you so much @TigerTheFrog . I must say, I'm pretty excited about posting a few audio snippets from the coming Organic Samples libraries. We form a strong team together with Orchestral Tools and whilst we share the same goals, we still keep our own ways of doing things.

Organic Samples will not suddenly come up with a kind of "Alternative Berlin Brass" with lots of different ensembles and sections. I basically keep focusing on the concepts I had so far and try pushing these forward thanks to that collaboration.
Looking forward to listening to those audio snippets.
OT is one my favourites and thanks to them I came across the organic samples, which I like very much and really have their own signature... Congrats on that.
Spitfire is one of the library companies I rely very much as well.

Then Project SAM... Their samples also have a top, pristine and alive quality. I wish they would release some libraries a bit more often, I admit!
 
Shout out to Joe Stevens (Bigcat1969), Sam Gossner (Versilian Studios), DSmolken (Karoryfer), Paul Battersby (Virtual Playing Orchestra), David Healy (Xtant/LibreWave), Alpine Project, Mattias Westlund (Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra), Jasper Blunk, Simon Dalzell (Ivy Audio), and to everyone else whose contributions have kept the free and/or open-source sampling community alive. Sorry I can't name everyone off the top of my head; there are some wonderful contributions from members here as well. Slightly OT, but big up to Jason Tackaberry (Reaticulate) as well.

It's amazing how much people contribute to the free scene in terms of samples, knowledge, and resources, without asking for anything (not even so much as an email address/signup) in return.


Despite the occasional drama and contrarianism here (and I should know, having been a part of it myself), there is a lot of valuable insight to be gained here. So really, I appreciate all of you here, whether we see eye to eye or not. I'm trying (often unsuccessfully) to refrain from posting my opinions here, but I have to express my gratitude for everyone's contributions to this community. I don't really fit in here at all, but I am constantly learning a lot from you folks. :thumbsup:
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom